[ESHOP launched] Trezor: Bitcoin hardware wallet

[Carlton Banks]

I would never buy a cheap clone of their device.

And I would never buy a device with closed source IP.

Bye bye Trezor. Bad decision.

[Totscha]

I would never buy a cheap clone of their device.

And I would never buy a device with closed source IP.

Bye bye Trezor. Bad decision.

I don't think people understand what closed source actually is. Hint: the source is not published publicly on Git.

The software is still open-source. Anyone can check the source an compile it by themselves. You can freely use it and copy it. It publicly published, for gods sake! Anyone can play around with it and see how it works. That's why it's there. Why put/keep it on Git if we can't even look?

You just can't distribute/sell it as your own (in your hardware product). Pretty sure you could make a deal for a paid license, but no freebies.

This only hurts the copy cats, the rest of us still have a hardware wallet with open-source software. And I'm also pretty sure it's not gonna stop the Chinese anyway...

[Carlton Banks]

I don't think people understand what closed source actually is. Hint: the source is not published publicly on Git.

You're wrong, this is not free software. That's what the customers bought into, and that's what they should be receiving. Making semantic arguments is not appropriate here; "free" and "open" are not used literally in a software development context.

This only hurts the copy cats, the rest of us still have a hardware wallet with open-source software. And I'm also pretty sure it's not gonna stop the Chinese anyway...

You're advocating the "2 wrongs make a right" approach.  And you're correct: this will not stop a successful copycat anyway. It will stop me buying the "official" device.

[Totscha]

I don't think people understand what closed source actually is. Hint: the source is not published publicly on Git.

You're wrong, this is not free software. That's what the customers bought into, and that's what they should be receiving. Making semantic arguments is not appropriate here; "free" and "open" are not used literally in a software development context.

This only hurts the copy cats, the rest of us still have a hardware wallet with open-source software. And I'm also pretty sure it's not gonna stop the Chinese anyway...

You're advocating the "2 wrongs make a right" approach.  And you're correct: this will not stop a successful copycat anyway. It will stop me buying the "official" device.

1. Exactly. The software is open but not free for anyone to copy and use in their device for sale. I have no problems with that. They want to make money from their hard work.

2. 2 wrongs makes a right was not my point. My point was that the Chinese have no respect for copyright.

3. With all that said. If it turns out they did backdate the licensing, that is a pretty deceptive move on their part. Meaning that in all fairness they should use LGPL for the 1.3 firmware source.

[Carlton Banks]

2. 2 wrongs makes a right was not my point. My point was that the Chinese have no respect for copyright.

lol, you just did it again right there

3. With all that said. If it turns out they did backdate the licensing, that is a pretty deceptive move on their part. Meaning that in all fairness they should use LGPL for the 1.3 firmware source.

Apparently: They decided they'd made a mistake with the licensing, and chose to use deception to backdate it, then lied about it publicly. This makes their ethics no better than those that are attempting to profit from their work. That sort of behaviour does not deserve any kind of reward or promotion.

[infobel]

I'm very disappointed with this.
I hope that some other legit wallet like Armory or Electrum takes the GPL source and continues the open source development for Trezor in their own way with 100% compatibility with Armory/Electrum/Etc.

You ruined it!

[fonsie]

Slush is one of the founders of Satoshi Labs, so I think he would know what they're working on...

What exactly are you trying to say? Did I not quote slush?

[Anon136]

We all know its not fair what those jerks in china are doing. We understand how you feel. You did so much work to produce this product, work that has to be built into the price of the product its self, and by using your hard work they can just charge cost for the hardware and make a profit while undercutting you. But threatening to use the state to attack people for using your code? That's not acceptable behavior in a civilized society.

[binford]

Apparently: They decided they'd made a mistake with the licensing, and chose to use deception to backdate it, then lied about it publicly. This makes their ethics no better than those that are attempting to profit from their work. That sort of behaviour does not deserve any kind of reward or promotion.

I think they first released 1.3 firmware under gpl v3 and then changed the license. thus not lying technically about 1.3 being open source when that happened. the license change was ca 24 hours ago, quoting slush from few days ago seems like a construction. 

I'm not happy with the restrictions for future releases but as long as it is open source I'm fine with that.

[Carlton Banks]

Apparently: They decided they'd made a mistake with the licensing, and chose to use deception to backdate it, then lied about it publicly. This makes their ethics no better than those that are attempting to profit from their work. That sort of behaviour does not deserve any kind of reward or promotion.

I think they first released 1.3 firmware under gpl v3 and then changed the license. thus not lying technically about 1.3 being open source when that happened. the license change was ca 24 hours ago, quoting slush from few days ago seems like a construction. 

I'm not happy with the restrictions for future releases but as long as it is open source I'm fine with that.

They falsified their git repo to imply the change was made 6 months ago, then backtracked on that to say they made the change when it was actually made. That's lying, regretting the implausibility of the lie, then telling the truth without acknowledging the lie.

[Newar]

We all know its not fair what those jerks in china are doing. [...]

Should have thought about that a bit earlier. Changing the license to 6 months back is not a good move.

[TwinWinNerD]

I think this is an outrage. If I understand this correctly, now people aren't even allowed to modify the software for altcoin use....

[NLNico]

I don't know much about it, but a license that doesn't allow commercial usage only would make more sense to me.

[freebit13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source#Microsoft_Reference_Source_License_.28Ms-RSL.29

This is the most restrictive of the Microsoft Shared Source licenses. The source code is made available to view for reference purposes only, mainly to be able to view Microsoft classes source code while debugging. Developers may not distribute or modify the code for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Hmmm, not cool, that's not exactly open-source 

[infobel]

Guys from Trezor are such idiots, right now other wallets won't touch this shit anymore with this license, integrating Trezor for Armory, Multibit, Electrum, etc...
Now I'm stuck with some useless Trezors

Wasted 240$ for some useless plastics which I can't use anymore because I can't trust it anymore being a project developed by such "kids".
Only a kid will get angry like this after his toys are borrowed by some other kid.

"look, you can take a look at my toys but don't touch them"

THAT'S WHAT OPEN SOURCE MEANS MORONS, so that anybody can take it, work with it...

[Carlton Banks]

Guys from Trezor are such idiots, right now other wallets won't touch this shit anymore with this license, integrating Trezor for Armory, Multibit, Electrum, etc...

One reason I held off buying a Trezor was the 100% closed transaction server used for myTrezor.com, there's just no way I'd be happy with that. If this new licence prevents the developers of p2p clients from integrating the code needed to drive the Trezor device, well, it just makes this even more tragic.

Only a kid will get angry like this after his toys are borrowed by some other kid.

"look, you can take a look at my toys but don't touch them"

It does look like an emotional reaction from the Trezor team. They would have been better off trying to use their brains, instead of relying on intimidation.

[guitarplinker]

One reason I held off buying a Trezor was the 100% closed transaction server used for myTrezor.com, there's just no way I'd be happy with that. If this new licence prevents the developers of p2p clients from integrating the code needed to drive the Trezor device, well, it just makes this even more tragic.

That's what I've been thinking about too. I'm not sure how MyTrezor is going to evolve in the coming weeks with these changes. I was actually just trying to setup an instance of it on my local network with no luck. I'll try again later to see if I can get it working, but I sure want to have a backup in case MyTrezor goes down.

By the way, awesome username! 

[ChaosFox]

This is what most people would consider a "knee-jerk reaction" to a veritably problematic situation, the feeling a competitor that is little more than a ripoff may be beating you to the punch with a cheaper product and without all the R&D costs you had to incur. Yet they probably did the very worst thing they could have done: piss of their clientele. They shouldn't have been aiming for the everyday user- the TREZOR was, and still is way too expensive for that.

Sure, the code is still "open" for auditing, but if that was the idea from the beginning, why not make it so? All what SatoshiLabs has done with this is NOTHING to stop any dodgy Chinese IP-violating company from making a clone and gave the BWallet folks the opportunity to make their own offering (They just open-sourced everything, including the server and the plugin) more attractive so they aren't considered "just a ripoff" and to top it off, they pulled a dirty trick, which ultimately failed by the way, to make it seem they came to that decision 6 months ago.

tl;dr Slush, you dun goofed. You're still a REALLY respected man in the Bitcoin community and the face of SatoshiLabs, but a rash decision like this did no one favors.

[klokan]

One reason I held off buying a Trezor was the 100% closed transaction server used for myTrezor.com, there's just no way I'd be happy with that. If this new licence prevents the developers of p2p clients from integrating the code needed to drive the Trezor device, well, it just makes this even more tragic.

That's what I've been thinking about too. I'm not sure how MyTrezor is going to evolve in the coming weeks with these changes. I was actually just trying to setup an instance of it on my local network with no luck. I'll try again later to see if I can get it working, but I sure want to have a backup in case MyTrezor goes down.

By the way, awesome username!  

All what's happening now is sad, but myTrezor.com is NOT going down. I have no idea how that became a topic. I did not see alena, slush or stick comment on this yet which they eventually will. Let's voice opinion that we don't like it and let them reconsider and release some official statement. In the meantime keep calm and don't expect myTrezor to vanish.

My personal opinion is that they never gave a promise that ALL future versions of the device will be open source and it's foolish to expect that. If you don't like that buy other open source wallet (shame no other HW wallet is open source and I don't count BWallet as "other" wallet for that matter) or just stay at 1.3.0 firmware that was released as open source. I also think that the rebase of sources was a bad decision and it also has no effect. Bad decisions happen. Even I do them! It's a problem only if you don't reconsider. People retrieved latest version of the open-sourced code with GPL licences so nothing prevents anybody to use yesterday's sorces with GPL licence: https://github.com/rfree/trezor-mcu-gpl/commits/master-gpl if they change licence now, I don't care but it won't work retroactively.

[Carlton Banks]

All what's happening now is sad, but myTrezor.com is NOT going down. I have no idea how that became a topic.

Possibly my fault. I wrote "closed transaction server" when I meant "closed source transaction server". Although it should be obvious what I meant from the context